National Football League coaches report to training camp next week in a state of puzzlement. They have no earthly idea how to defend the option.

Never mind that NFL coaches are regarded as the greatest minds in professional sports, and that the option dates back to the Truman Administration. When an NFL quarterback takes the snap and runs, the league's best defensive coaches tend to hide behind their clipboards. It's enough to induce laughter in the film room afterward.

Coaches "don't know what they are doing," said Tony DeMeo, a longtime college coach who now advises other coaches on the option.

"Pro coaches have not studied it hard enough," said Ted Sundquist, a former NFL general manager who learned to stop the option while an assistant at Air Force in the 1980s. Watching NFL defenses succumb to option-induced paralysis, "I sit back and laugh," he said.

The problem, actually, is less bafflement than arrogance. The option, after all, is a staple of the college game. It's how the Cornhuskers and Sooners won national championships. By contrast, NFL coaches have long regarded their quarterbacks—and the opponents' quarterbacks—as too precious and fragile to risk running with the ball. "Everyone in the NFL has been stubborn," said Denard Robinson, the Jacksonville Jaguars' running back who broke rushing records as a quarterback at Michigan.

But ignoring the option is no longer an option. The number of runs by NFL quarterbacks rose to 1,587 last year, up 20% from five years ago. And that doesn't include the many times a running quarterback exercised the option of pitching the ball to a running back.

Propelling the trend is the rise of running quarterbacks such as Robert Griffin III (Redskins), Russell Wilson (Seahawks) and Colin Kaepernick (49ers). What separates them from old-school option-running quarterbacks—and from their contemporary, Tim Tebow (now with the New England Patriots)—is that these signal callers can fake the option and throw 40 yards downfield with pinpoint accuracy.

The option, developed in the 1940s and continuously honed in subsequent decades, is a deceptively simple play. A quarterback takes the snap from center and runs left or right along with a phalanx of linemen, running backs and receivers. Assessing what the opposition is doing in front of him, the quarterback either pitches the ball or keeps it and runs. From that basic play, the NFL has developed multiple wrinkles, one known as the read option, wherein a quarterback takes his cue from reading a single defensive player's reaction to the snap.

Adding to the play's potency and popularity these days is the mounting wave of rules changes in the sport aimed at protecting quarterbacks by effectively outlawing contact with their heads or knees.

Eric Crouch, Nebraska's 2001 Heisman-winning option quarterback, said that when he was playing, defenders were taught to hit him in the chin with the crown of their helmet whenever he had the ball, thus discouraging option plays. "There were plays when I couldn't talk, I couldn't call a play because my jaw and tongue didn't work. I had to call a timeout," Crouch said.

Drafted in the NFL in 2002, back when the league had no use for option quarterbacks, Crouch was turned into a wide receiver and safety.

The power of the option—and the powerlessness to stop it—were on full display during San Francisco's 45–31 defeat of Green Bay in January's divisional playoff game. Kaepernick completed 17 of 31 passes for 263 yards and two touchdowns. But his most devastating accomplishment came on the ground, where he finished the game with 181 yards on 16 carries. One particularly embarrassing moment for Green Bay came in the fourth quarter when Kaepernick took the snap from his own 12-yard line.

First he handed the ball off to his running back—oh no, he didn't. By the time Packers star linebacker Clay Matthews realized Kaepernick had kept the ball and was running left, the defender had only one hope of mounting any pursuit: He spun around like a ballerina. Sixteen yards later, Kaepernick ran out of bounds.

The befuddlement of Matthews on that play was so obvious as to elicit hoots from some viewers. Clay Matthews and Packer coaches, through a team spokesman, were not available to comment. But Clay's brother Casey Matthews, a Philadelphia Eagles linebacker, said his sibling "was very frustrated after that game."

What's an NFL coach to do?

NFL observers like Sundquist said the read option could be tamed with simple assignment football—one defender on each offensive player who could possibly receive the ball. That, however, could detract from a linebacker's ability to defend against the pass.

Rick Lantz, a longtime defensive college assistant for teams including Notre Dame said the NFL could slow the option with the return of so-called "rotational coverage." This calls for defensive backs to protect the outside and force ball carriers inside. That, too, however, could weaken downfield pass coverage.

There's some evidence that the NFL is taking lessons from the college game. According to a school spokesman, Georgia Tech, which runs one of the most pure options in football, has traded ideas with the nearby Atlanta Falcons.

All of this brings glee to the coaches who've long suspected the option would work in the NFL. Former Oklahoma Sooners and Dallas Cowboys coach Barry Switzer said in an interview that he once asked Cowboys owner Jerry Jones to draft an option quarterback behind Troy Aikman for red zone purposes, but was rebuffed. Now, Switzer believes that the NFL is finally hiring bold coaches who are committed to running a nontraditional NFL offense, along with creative owners who will let them.

One reason the option is succeeding in the NFL, says Anthony Allen, a Ravens running back who is an option specialist, is that defenders are encouraged to make big plays—and are paid by the same measure, he says. So they look for big plays instead of focusing on a player who only may receive the ball. He laughs when thinking about overeager NFL defenders who can't stop a simple pitch. But he also knows his good fortune. "I mean, it's funny. I never thought the option would work in the NFL. Then I see all the NFL teams start using a pitchback and I get excited and think 'Hey, whoa, maybe I have a future in the NFL.'"

Some top-tier NFL coaches aren't convinced that anything needs to be done. Turning their noses up, they regard the option as a gimmick best employed by the likes of the University of Oregon, not grown men.

This offseason, Pittsburgh Steelers coach Mike Tomlin called the read-option offense "the flavor of the month."

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